I got a question on HIV infection from dried blood. I know no one has been infected with HIV due to contact with toilet seat so far. But I am still worrying about its possibility.

Today, I went to a public washroom. After flushing the toilet, I noticed there was some blood on the top/side of the toilet seat. The blood seemed to be dried. Because it's very possible that some part of my body might have touched that blood spot, I was in a panic since then. I'm in my 7 months pregnancy now. So this question is very important to me. Can anyone please tell me how great my risk of HIV infection is by casual touching the blood spot on the top/side of toilet seat?

DO NOT WORRY AT ALL. HIV will die (especially in dried blood). Lets say it hits a countertop, (drip, drip, whatever) and you come along 30 seconds later, and put your hand in that blood.....still NO chance that you would get hiv thru that contact. HIV will die within SECONDS of touching air.

You and your baby are fine. (: Please relax, and have a great time with your baby, and congratulations!!! You will have so much fun!!

But I still got a small problem. According to what I read online, HIV would surive in air for up to 2 hours even in dried blood. Is this true? Besides, is my pimple on the inner side of my thigh an open sore? I think it was not broken. If pimple is not considered an open sore or lesion, can I take this as a true fact that even when blood containing active HIV virus contacted with this unbroken pimple, I would not be infected by HIV either?

Sorry for so many questions I asked. And thank you for your patience :)

I would really like to know where you have read that it lives in outside of the body for up to 2 hrs. That is NOT true. And yes, your pimple is considered a closed wound, so there would be no way of transmission there. but what is more upsetting to me, is that someone has given you that false 2 HOUR information. that is not right. ! Please beleive be, or point it in my direction so I can find it. Maybe something I have not learned, but not the way I learned it at the time!!!

Love and prayers to you, do you know what it is you are having?? a boy, or girl?

Thanks a lot for your quick response. Sorry I couldn't find the exact website link which stated 2 hours survival for HIV virus. But I googled just now, and found some other websites which said HIV virus can live in air for up to 9 hours. Here's the link (please read the last paragraph):http://depts.washington.edu/hivaids/post/case1/discussion.html

I guess one reason they said HIV virus can live up to 9 hours out of body is based on some laboratory studies with the use of artificially high concentrations of laboratory-grown virus. In real world, HIV virus' life exposed to air should be shorter.

My baby is a boy. It's energetic, kicking me a lot everyday :) Maybe he got the potential to be a soccer player when he's grown up.

When I used the public toilet, the crotch part of my underwear did touch the toilet. Since the underwear might have also touched that dried blood spot, what is my chance of getting HIV via the underwear after my underwear touched my genital area?

you are talking about a toilet of a person with an unknown status first of all. if it were easily transmittable that way....there would be plenty of other unknown infections in the world. Keep to the matter DRIED BLOOD, therefor if the blood was dried, the virus has already died. You are fine, I'm sure of it.

If this is true then how is it that people have contracted HIV through razors and toothbrushes? Google "HIV household transmissions" and you will find plenty of such reported cases. I happen to be one of those cases. The CDC advises that you do not share razors or toothbrushes with someone who is HIV infected. It's on the CDC website, look it up. And that doesn't have to be right after they use it. It's been reported to survive on a toothbrush hours later. If what you are saying is true, why did my doctor advise my wife to use gloves and clorox if I cut myself? Clorox does kill HIV on contact. But HIV does not die immediatley upon touching air. That is misinformation. If it did, doctors and EMT's wouldn't bother wearing surgical gloves. Dried blood I'm not sure about. But if you got HIV infected blood into your eye you could contract it. The eye is a mucos membrane. So is the nose, mouth and other orifices of the body. My doctor told me, and you may want to look this up, that in the right conditions, say for instance a damp bathroom, HIV can live for up to eight hours in spilled blood. I guess it depends on so many variables, like the persons viral load, how much blood it was and so on. But to mislead people and tell them it dies once it hits the air is wrong.

I'm backing up my last post, stating that HIV does live in blood and does not die immediatley after contact with air, with information published by the CDC:

Households and Other SettingsAlthough HIV has been transmitted between family members in a household setting, this type of transmission is very rare. These transmissions are believed to have resulted from contact between skin or mucous membranes and infected blood or body fluids. To prevent even such rare occurrences, precautions, as described in previously published guidelines, should be taken in all settings -- including the home -- to prevent exposures to the blood or body fluids of persons who are HIV infected, at risk for HIV infection, or whose infection and risk status are unknown. For example, gloves should be worn during contact with blood or other body fluids that could possibly contain blood, such as urine, feces, or vomit. Cuts, sores, or breaks on both the caregiver's and patient's exposed skin should be covered with bandages. Hands and other parts of the body should be washed immediately after contact with blood or other body fluids, and surfaces soiled with blood should be disinfected appropriately.

Practices that increase the likelihood of blood contact, such as sharing of razors and toothbrushes, should be avoided. Needles and other sharp instruments should be used only when medically necessary and handled according to recommendations for health-care settings. (Do not put caps back on needles by hand or remove needles from syringes. Dispose of needles in puncture-proof containers out of the reach of children and visitors.)

There is no known risk of HIV transmission to co-workers, clients, or consumers from contact in industries such as food service establishments (see information on survival of HIV in the environment). Food service workers known to be infected with HIV need not be restricted from work unless they have other infections or illnesses (such as diarrhea or hepatitis A) for which any food service worker, regardless of HIV infection status, should be restricted. The Public Health Service recommends that all food service workers follow recommended standards and practices of good personal hygiene and food sanitation.

In 1985, CDC issued routine precautions that all personal service workers (e.g., hairdressers, barbers, cosmetologists, massage therapists) should follow, even though there is no evidence of transmission from a personal service worker to a client or vice versa. Instruments that are intended to penetrate the skin (e.g., tattooing and acupuncture needles, ear piercing devices) should be used once and disposed of or thoroughly cleaned and sterilized after each use using procedures recommended for use in health-care institutions. Instruments not intended to penetrate the skin but which may become contaminated with blood (e.g., razors) should be used for only one client and disposed of or thoroughly cleaned and disinfected after each use.

Here's more to back up my claims from the San Francisco Aids Foundation web site.

Length of timeThe length of time HIV can survive outside the body depends on:

the amount of HIV present in the body fluid; what conditions the fluid is subjected to In a laboratory, HIV has been kept viable (able to infect) for up to 15 days, and even after the body fluid containing it had dried. However, these experiments involved an extremely high concentration of the virus which was kept at a stable temperature and humidity. These conditions are very unlikely to exist outside of a laboratory. HIV is very fragile, and many common substances, including hot water, soap, bleach and alcohol, will kill it.

Risk of transmissionThe chances of becoming infected with HIV by handling a body fluid are extremely small, because that fluid will rarely have access to a person's bloodstream. However, anyone handling blood, semen or vaginal fluids should be careful to avoid touching them with broken skin or getting them into mucous membranes (such as those around the eye). Spills of blood should be mopped up, cleaned with soap and water, then cleaned with bleach. For maximum safety, the person cleaning the spill should also wear latex gloves, and should wash the hands thoroughly after the cleanup.

Sigh, your post really scared me. Seems there is some possibility for me to contract HIV via the casual touch of the dried blood on the toilet with my genital part or my underwear :-( Maybe I need to take a HIV test 8 weeks later.

as long as you yourself have no open sores or breaks in your skin, you could roll around in it and not be at risk. Regardless, the risk would be very low otherwise. Some people worry way too much. Hiv lives in the blood. When the blood has been out of the body for 4 minutes the HIV is dead. DO NOT WORRY you are safe. Now you can find something else to worry about.

Honey...Unless you were wallering in that dried blood your safe. Please go to the lessons section and get some education. another side is aidsmeds.com which also has a lessons section. You are perfectly ok and your baby is fine. Calm down, take a dep breath and know unless you were shoving those panties inside something just after the blood was left on the seat there isn't a snowballs chance in you know where you have contracted HIV from the seat.I hope you have a very healthy happy baby boy who grows up to spoil you rotten and buy you lots of expensive jewelry.Okie Cowboy Guy

Thanks for your response and the nice words. Actually, I did educate myself online with HIV knowledge these days. And I know so far there's no case reported on hiv infection by casual contact. But the pregnancy made me panic. I guess after all you guys' kind comfort, I will get over this panic soon.

Can HIV be transmitted outside of the body?Whilst HIV may live for some time outside of the body, HIV transmission has not been reported as a consequence of contact with spillages of blood, semen or other bodily fluids.

Just because someone comes into contact with tiny quantities of HIV in dried blood, it does not follow that infection will occur. Scientists agree that HIV does not survive well in the environment, making the possibility of environmental transmission remote.

To obtain data on the survival of HIV, laboratory studies have required the use of artificially high concentrations of laboratory-grown virus. Although these concentrations of HIV can be kept alive for days or even weeks under controlled conditions, studies have shown that drying of these high concentrations of HIV reduces the amount of infectious virus by 90 to 99 percent within several hours. Since the HIV concentrations used in laboratory studies are much higher than those actually found in blood or other specimens, drying of HIV-infected human blood or other body fluids reduces the theoretical risk of environmental transmission to that which has been observed, essentially zero. Incorrect interpretation of conclusions drawn from laboratory studies have unnecessarily alarmed some people. AVERT.org has additional information about AIDS.

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